New York City is expecting its biggest snowfall in more than three years during the next few days, although that may not be saying all that much in an increasingly snow-starved city.
The broader metropolitan region, including parts of southern Connecticut, North Jersey and southeast New York, could see total snow accumulations as high as 5 or 7 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
The snow is expected to start late Friday afternoon, escalating Friday night and wrapping up by Saturday morning. The most intense snowfall is expected overnight Friday into early Saturday morning.
If New York City sees more than 4 inches of snow, it will be the most significant accumulation since January 2022, when more than 8 inches fell in Central Park.
The storm is expected to make getting into and out of the city even more complicated during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. Gov. Kathy Hochul said that New Yorkers traveling on Friday “may wish to rearrange” their plans, and Mayor Eric Adams asked city residents to avoid driving on Friday if possible.
Ms. Hochul said that the state is planning to deploy more than 1,600 large plow trucks. The city’s sanitation department will send out hundreds of salt spreaders to pre-treat roads ahead of the storm.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said this week that it was expecting nearly 15 million travelers to use the region’s airports — including John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International and LaGuardia — along with its bridges and tunnels during the holiday season, with travel peaking on Sunday.
The Port Authority said it was monitoring the weather forecast and encouraged travelers using the region’s bridges and tunnels to sign up for email alerts ahead of the storm, and for people using airports to check FlightAware for delays and cancellations.
On Christmas Day, some children in New York City were already anticipating the possibility of significant snowfall.
At the Hippo Playground within Riverside Park on the Upper West Side, Arianna Wesby, 11, was playing with her five cousins, whom she was visiting from El Paso, and bracing for the coming unfamiliar weather.
Back home, Arianna said, “They have sand storms, they have wind storms,” — not snowstorms. She was not prepared for what Friday would bring. “I brought shorts!”
The storm will represent one last managerial challenge for Mr. Adams, the outgoing mayor.
The city’s police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, had been responsible for snow removal in her old job as sanitation chief. She joked on social media that she was “suffering from an acute case of FOMO” after reading the forecast.
John Keefe and Sarah Maslin Nir contributed reporting.
Eliza Shapiro reports on New York City for The Times.
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